Chapter 68

Mum patted my shoulders gently. “Are you sure you want to do this, sweetheart?”

“I’m sure,” I replied.

We were gathered in the common room. I was feeling comfortable in the prevailing silence that had so rarely filled my evenings of late. Our growing community, with their newfound wealth, had started to make their visits far more frequent. I had heard Mum muttering about increasing the next order she was placing with the Adventurer’s Society to accommodate the increased traffic. Life had changed, and I was still adjusting to the new norm.

With the fireplace crackling behind Gramps, they checked my clothes and preparations for the third time. I was dressed in a pair of mottled, black, woolen pants with a matching shirt. No fur coat since I was supposed to be moving quiet and fast, returning before the cold of the mountains had a chance to seep into my bones. My leather boots were laced up tight with the fur around the top tucked into my pants so that at least my feet shouldn’t freeze. Still, they were loose enough for climbing, which I expected to do a lot of.

Physically, I was fully prepared. As for my Paths, that was the first thing I had done this evening. The Path of Coordination once more sat in my Dormant Paths, stuck at Tier six. In its place, the Path of Infiltration waited for me to undertake my nighttime foray.

I tried not to let the excitement make me jittery, worried that if I did, Mum would change her mind and not let me go. That was the last thing I wanted. Instead, my lips curled up into a confident and cheeky smile.

“Don’t worry, Mum. I got this!”

She knelt down and placed her hands gently on my shoulders. “I’ll always worry, sweetheart. But if this is what you want to do, if Songleaf is that important to you, then of course I will help you in any way I can.”

I threw my arms around her neck and held on tight. “Thanks, Mum.”

“Come on then,” Gramps grumbled. “The night isn’t getting any younger, and I want some sleep before the sun rises.”

I followed Gramps to the front door of the outpost. He turned around before opening the door, holding out a small glass bottle filled with a pale purple liquid. The night vision potion felt larger in my hand than it had when Magatha first delivered it this morning.

Without waiting on ceremony, Gramps broke the wax seal on top of the potion and drank the entire thing. It took me a second to copy his example, but a moment later, the purple fluid was draining down my throat. I tried not to sputter at the taste. It was rancid. The flavour like something was rotting within it, barely reduced by a floral aftertaste. Reminding myself that it was made from grimfaced owl eyes almost made me vomit, but I swallowed the feeling before I could ruin the potion.

“Was it bad?” Mum asked, the question directed at both of us.

“I’ve had worse,” Gramps replied, before muttering very quietly. “But it still tasted like three-day old ass.”

Mum playfully smacked him on the arm, clearly trying not to smile. I was just thankful for the injected levity.

The potion settled in my stomach slowly over the next few minutes. Focusing on the sensation, I could feel the queasy feeling in my stomach retreat. It was replaced by a coolness that seemed to pass through my aether channels, pooling in my head near my eyes.

Suddenly, the flickering candles were too bright, each one a campfire. They paled before the veritable sun of our fireplace. I closed my eyes, looking away and trying to shield myself from the brightness. Someone's hands — most likely Mum’s based on the softness — landed on my shoulders. Then I was being guided forward. I heard the sound of a door creaking — the hinges badly in need of a little lubricant.

The cool, night air hit me in the face as Mum slowly pushed me forward. I opened my eyes slowly, tentatively taking in the area around the outpost. It was as though I was seeing the world at dusk rather than the middle of the night. There were deep shadows next to the Kellins’ trading post, places where the moon's light couldn’t touch, but everywhere else was clear as a late sunny afternoon to me.

I looked at Gramps who gave a nod — permission to proceed. Then, with one last glance at my mother, I activated Muffled Steps and began jogging across the road. For a month now, I had been experimenting with how long I could use my aether before I ran out. Once upon a time, I had only been able to maintain Muffled Steps for five minutes. It had increased to seven, largely due to increased efficiency from being a higher level. Now, with a Lesser Aether Core, I could keep it going for five times that long. Which was both good for getting it to evolve when I got it to the hundredth step, and for tonight where I intended to sneak around our neighbours’ houses.

The skies above were clear with the moon and stars granting more than enough light for my potion-enhanced vision to check for avian predators. The night wasn’t completely silent. The rustle of the wind through the leaves of the trees and the gentle hum of insects in the dark were more than enough to cover the sound of my boots running across the road.

I slowed down as I approached the Kellins’ house, dipping into the shadow of the building cast by the moon. Pausing for a moment, I let my heart rate slow and my breath even out. Then, with slow and careful steps, I crept around towards the back of their trading post. Unlike the outpost, which had glass windows, the Kellins’ house had wooden shutters that were closed against the cold and the denizens of the night.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Waiting beneath the window, I spent a minute making sure no sounds were coming from inside before I carefully pushed at one of the shutters. It didn’t open. I had come expecting this and pulled out a thin wooden knife — cutlery from our common room — and slipped it into the gap between the shutters. Originally, I had intended to bring one of our kitchen knives until Mum pointed out that getting caught with a piece of wood was a whole different story to getting caught breaking into someone's house with a metal knife. The former would mark me as a little thief, the latter, possibly a murderer.

The latch holding the shutters together lifted under my careful ministrations, and I was able to slowly swing the wood open. I left it half closed, unwilling to risk a second hinge. Activating Controlled Grip and Muffled Steps at the same time, I climbed into the room. In the corner of the room was a solid wooden bed. There were two lumps hidden beneath a fur blanket — clearly the Kellins with a low rumble from Frederick every few seconds. At the end of the bed was a crib within which slumbered their baby boy. No one reacted to my presence.

I had expected the feeling of successfully infiltrating their home to be one of elation, like I had accomplished a grand task. That was how I felt after doing the same to the miners’ old shack. Instead, the feeling I had was the same as what I was — that of an intruder. I didn’t belong here, and I was invading their privacy, their home, their safe space. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and I almost turned on the spot to leave.

Only the fact that I was already in their home, and that I had a goal to complete, kept me from giving in to the feeling. My hand drifted towards my pocket where seven little drawings on brown paper waited. Each one of a different weapon from a Path I had unlocked. They were meant to be my little pranks, markers I would hide in each of the places I broke into to show off.

But, that wasn’t what I wanted to do now. How would I feel if I was going through my room and found something that had clearly been placed there to taunt me? I’d feel violated, and probably pretty angry. My hand drifted away from my planned prank, and I looked around the room. The Path of Infiltration might accept that I had achieved my goal, but just in case, I drifted over to a wooden basin near their cooking area. A metal spoon — most likely Martin’s work — was drying on a rag. I moved it a finger's width to the right then headed back for the window I came in.

Climbing back out was just as easy for me as climbing in. Once outside, I carefully closed the shutter and reapplied the latch before crouching down in the darkness. I glanced at my Status to see if the Myriad Paths had acknowledged my performance.

Path of Infiltration I (29/100)

When I had broken into the miners’ old shack, I had gotten twelve steps on my Path of Infiltration. Of course, I had lost two of those steps when I moved the Path out of my Active list. This time, with my improved Shadow affinity and the increased bonus from Gifted, it seemed like a single task had rewarded me with nineteen steps. It was an insane number and really drove home how powerful affinities could be, not to mention the sixty-one percent boost from Gifted. But the most interesting thing to me was that, with four more successful infiltrations, I would push the Path to the second tier in a single night. An almost unfathomable goal for most people.

Since I had lost my sense of excitement towards the task itself, I stopped wasting time and activated Muffled Steps once more. Walking quickly and quietly, I approached the four houses built for the Horndale Mining Co.

Between each successful infiltration, I popped out somewhere that Gramps could see me and gave a wave. He would wave back, acknowledging my progress and probably informing Mum that I was okay. Then I would move onto the next house.

Each one was a repeat of the last with only a few changes. The houses were basically identical, likely built with Griselda’s help and following the same style. Unlike the Kellins’, their shutters were simply pulled closed, and I didn’t have to do any finagling to get inside. Then, I would climb in, move something small just a little, and climb back out.

I noted a few things as I went. Brin was a snorer, for one, so she was never allowed to sleep in my room. One of the miners slept in the nude and was hairy enough to be a beastkin. That image would, unfortunately, be burned into my mind for a while, and I accepted it as penance for my sins and the price of progressing my Path.

However, I had expected there to be two more miners present. They weren’t. I wondered if maybe they slept at their mine instead. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been away for days before. Either way, I put the thought out of my mind as I climbed out of the last house and crouched down in the darkness.

A notification flashed in the corner of my vision, taunting me. Looking around, I doublechecked to make sure there weren’t any bears in my surroundings or birds in the sky. Satisfied I was safe, I opened the notification.

You have advanced the Tier of your Path! Path of Infiltration II (105/100)

Reward: 2 Extra Skill Slots, Skill Seed (Infiltration) (Greater), 4 Unallocated Stats

Not enough free Skill Slots available. Reward of Skill Seed (Infiltration) (Greater) provided as a physical object.

The slick orb appeared in my hand before immediately being shoved deep into my pocket. I couldn’t help but smirk in the darkness as I applied the Unallocated Stats to Gifted, flush with a sense of victory. Gifted had improved by another percent, further snowballing my advantage. On top of that, I now had enough free Skill Slots to use my Lesser Stealth Skill Seed if I wanted to. The extra Skill Seed was buttercream flower on the icing of an already stacked cake.

I was on top of the world, having gotten everything I wanted from this night time foray. Which was why I was so pissed off when I heard the two voices whispering in the darkness. The two miners crept away from the old miner’s shack, bars of silver in their hands that shone like compacted moonbeams in my night vision potion-enhanced sight.

I should just go home. It’s not worth it, I thought, even as I activated Muffled Steps and crept after them. My curiosity is going to get me in trouble one of these days.